Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Okay. And we're live.
Great. Here we are. Repossible podcast. Bradley Charbonneau here together with Janet Margot today. Hello. Hi. It is Wednesday, day, like one and a half of this conference. Well, I guess two if you count Monday.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: I think it's two. Let's count.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Vendor conference. And we have eight minutes here. I gotta say, I am super geeking out about awesome audio equipment. I'm really curious to see how that works. And on that note, that's exactly what we're going to talk about. The unexpected benefits of an in person conference. When you're really at a place, what is something that you might have your plans about it, what you're going to get out of it. And then there's the. Absolutely. By definition, you will not get something out of something that you do not attend. So, Janet, you just walked over here and you mentioned something that you said five minutes ago. I wouldn't have said this.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, so an hour ago, to be realistic, an hour ago I was sitting with an acquaintance, author, sort of friend, and you know, she's like, oh, you have to meet this person, you have to meet that person. You have to meet the other person. And I was just thinking, gosh, I can't believe the people I'm meeting, the networking I'm doing, and there's just a lot of synchronicity going on. This is fantastic.
I'm just sitting there, don't really have a plan for the day. I spoke this morning at a presentation and I'm a little fried from that.
And then somebody, you actually came by and said, oh, I wanted to pop into Shel's automation session. And I was like, hey, why don't I support Shel? She's been so supportive of me. That really wasn't even on my agenda. And I went into her, into the learning lab where she was doing author automations. And it just blew my mind. Oh my God. So, yeah, I'm still reeling from that, to be honest with you. So that is just amazing. It's unexpected. You know, when you come to these conferences, I think it's really good to put things in your agenda that you want to attend, but also be open to these other spontaneous things.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: I mean, look how spontaneous that was. I said, oh, I'm coming over here to do this podcast.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: When you said, oh, there's shells over there. Automate. Oh, okay.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Wow. Da da, bing, bada bam. It just happened. Wow, that's really cool. For me, I have. There are some people I really wanted to meet. I Wanted to meet Julie Broad. I wanted to hang out with Shel. I wanted to meet some nonfiction folks. I met some I didn't expect, like Sue's. And then I heard that presentation from Andrew Davis, a lot about AI and his whole presentation style blew me away. And I didn't even know he was on the agenda. And that was a major surprise. I got to talk with him. Talking. Talked about presentations and being a keynote speaker.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Everybody's raving about him.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Yes. Wow.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: I missed it because I was prepping for one of my sessions, but wow. I can't wait to review the recording.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And that. Well, thankfully there's so much content going on here that they're recording. We get to watch those and I think a little shout out here to Author Nation so we as attendees can watch those later. But I'm curious and I don't want to speak out of turn, but can people still buy. Do you think they could buy the digital after the fact?
[00:03:16] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Well, you know what I'm gonna think? Possibly.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Cause they're not. I think they're not really releasing digital until January anyway.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: But some of the stuff we like. Frankly, if I were listening to this podcast and I just heard you, Janet, talking about Shell's Author Automation, I'd wanna watch it. So I've really.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: My mind is completely blown. I took so many notes. I was texting my business partner from the session. We have to just blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it was. It was fantastic. And the other thing, too. So I've had two speaking sessions so far and I have a third coming. And I just want to say, like, the attendees are so great. And even though I'm presenting to them, they are really enriching me with their questions. And I feel like my presentation today, my talk, was just so good and so interactive. And part of it is because of the people that attend and the time they take to spend, you know, time with me at 8 o'clock in the morning without caffeine and great questions and. I don't know, I'm. I'm really like high off this conference right now.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's just been the unexpected. But like you say, you got to be open to it.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Don't have your rigid schedule. You have every minute planned. Keep some area opens for spontaneity.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Also, one other thing I want to note, there are a number of people, like, faces that I recognize that come here that I don't really see around the conference floor very much. I feel like they're hanging out in their hotel rooms. And full disclosure, I hang out in my hotel room a lot because I do need to decompress and be quiet.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it's important.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: But then I come out here on the conference floor not knowing a soul, and I'll just hang out and it's uncomfortable, but I'm trying to get comfortable with just kind of being there without an agenda. And that's when I'm meeting new people and randos come up to me and I'm like, oh, my God.
Well, it's true. I don't know who these people are. So I think that's an important thing to come. You know, coming to a conference, I think it's really cool to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Wow. Good. Good stuff. And also being open for it. Being open for anything that might come along. And here. So if you know me, you know my mathematical equations that I love so much. So there is a statistical, definite possibility of zero. Of meeting new people, of having that.
Spontaneous.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Spontaneous.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Spontaneous. Thank you. Spontaneous. That's like a Greek philosopher. Oh, good old spontaneous.
Spontaneous meeting. And I can guarantee you without a shadow of a doubt that the chance of that happening is zero if you don't come.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: And if you come here, the chance increases to a possibility, but really more a probability.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: But also Other Nation, I think, has set things up. I mean, I wasn't at previous conferences here in this venue before, but the way they've set things up, there's a lot of room like they've built in that spontaneity. There's lounges here. It's not. It's not a stiff environment. It is a really open environment, and I dig that.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: You know, speaking of open environment, we were just talking on the other podcast about how the writers community is like, weirdly friendly and weirdly collaborative and cooperative, supportive and inspirational. And there's people of people making a million bucks and people making zero bucks and we are having a cup of tea together. And the fact that that's okay and the million dollar person can talk with a zero dollar person and there's. There's no judgment. There's no.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Bad feelings. It's. It's all collaborative. And that is. That is odd.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: And even for ads, I go, you know, I'm happy to see my number one competitor and I go and chat with him.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: It's great. Yeah. That is just crazy craziness. So I'm super thrilled to be here. It is just great. Thank you also to Author Nation for letting us use this fantastic audio equipment. I can't wait to see how much better it is than my usual audio recording. So that's yet another thing that I didn't expect to be doing here, to be doing a podcast here with fantastic audio equipment. Thank you so much. Shout out to Author Nation. And yeah, thanks, Janet. Thanks for coming and hanging out. Speaking of spontaneity, I literally called her over and said, hey, Janet, want to come to my podcast?
[00:07:38] Speaker B: And I'm like, my mind is blown. I don't know what I'm going to say.
Okay, thanks, Bradley.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Signing out from Las Vegas. See you next week. Bye for now.
